Chapter 73: Before We Grew Up

The invitation arrived at an almost comically inappropriate time.

Giovanni, Alexander, Gerald, Elias, and the private investigator had spent most of the morning discussing a supposedly dead safety inspector who’d somehow acquired three identities, infiltrated Mercer Logistics, and vanished again.

Then their phones chimed.

Almost simultaneously.

Alexander glanced at his.

Giovanni did the same.

Gerald, still seated across from them, looked between the two men.

"What?"

Neither answered.

Giovanni opened the notification first.

ALUMNI HOMECOMING & CLASS REUNION

The old school crest sat proudly above the announcement.

He smiled.

Alexander saw it and immediately became suspicious.

"No."

Giovanni looked over.

"I haven’t said anything."

"You smiled."

"So?"

"I remember that smile."

Gerald leaned forward. "Wait. Is that our reunion?"

Giovanni turned the screen.

Gerald immediately reached for his own phone.

"I didn’t get one."

"You weren’t in our high school," Alexander reminded him.

"Right."

Gerald sank back.

"College friend. Completely different collection of embarrassing memories."

Alexander returned his attention to the invitation.

The date and time had already been selected after several rounds of voting he’d apparently ignored.

Another poll remained open.

VENUE

The options included a hotel ballroom, a restaurant with a private events hall, a former classmate’s family estate, and their old high school.

Giovanni selected the school without hesitation.

Alexander noticed.

"Of course."

"What did you choose?"

"Nothing."

"Why?"

"Because I haven’t decided whether I’m going."

Giovanni looked genuinely surprised.

"You’re going."

"That sounded suspiciously like a decision made on my behalf."

"Fine."

Giovanni leaned back.

"You’re probably going."

"Better."

"Almost certainly."

"Worse."

Gerald looked between them.

"Why wouldn’t you go?"

Alexander gave him a look.

Gerald thought about it.

Then slowly nodded.

"Oh."

Exactly.

There was no need to explain.

Alexander Vance attending a reunion after being publicly abandoned at the Marriage Bureau would already attract attention.

Alexander Vance attending with his childhood friend turned business partner, whom the public had recently become extremely interested in, would attract considerably more.

Then there was Dominic Sebastian.

Already confirmed.

"I don’t particularly feel like becoming the evening’s entertainment," Alex said.

Giovanni shrugged.

"Then don’t entertain them."

Alexander looked at him.

"You make social interaction sound remarkably easy."

"It is when you don’t answer questions."

Gerald laughed.

Alexander didn’t.

Unfortunately, Giovanni was completely serious.

"What about you?" Alexander asked. "Why are you so interested?"

That quieted him.

Giovanni looked at the old crest again.

"I didn’t really get to leave properly."

Alexander understood immediately.

Graduation day.

Giovanni had delivered the valedictory address while movers were already loading the Mercers’ belongings into trucks.

By evening, the family was gone.

No graduation party.

No long summer with classmates.

Hardly even a proper goodbye.

Giovanni had left behind his parrot, his familiar roads, horseback rides, neighbors, and eventually almost everyone he’d grown up with.

Alexander’s expression softened.

"Then vote."

"I already did."

"I meant I’ll vote."

Giovanni smiled again.

This time, Alexander didn’t complain.

Gerald eventually realized it was probably time for him to leave. The two CEOs had already moved on to a subject that had very little to do with him, and there was no reason for him to keep hovering around.

"I should get going."

Instead of offering his hand again, Gerald simply waved. Their first handshake had been lukewarm enough that he apparently wasn’t interested in trying for a better one.

Giovanni gave him a brief nod.

That evening, Giovanni found his yearbook where no one would’ve expected it.

His office at home.

Not displayed.

Not carefully preserved on a bookshelf.

It sat inside the bottom drawer beneath old property documents and several notebooks from his university years.

He hadn’t opened it in a very long time.

The binding protested faintly.

Giovanni sat back and began turning the pages.

The first familiar face made him smile.

Patrick Lim.

Patrick had apparently spent most of high school believing Giovanni was perpetually starving.

Not entirely without reason.

The Mercers had still been comfortable then, but Giovanni regularly stayed late for non-academic activities and had an irritating habit of forgetting snacks.

Patrick always had two sandwiches.

One afternoon, he’d simply dropped the second onto Giovanni’s notebook.

My mother packs too much.

It had taken Giovanni years to realize Patrick’s mother hadn’t packed too much at all.

Patrick had asked her to make another.

He turned the page.

Elena Marquez.

Pocket books.

Entire piles of them.

Mysteries. Adventures. Terrible romances whose covers Giovanni had carefully hidden behind textbooks.

Return this one.

I always return them.

You returned the last one after six months.

Still counts.

Giovanni wondered whether Elena still read as much.

Then came Samuel Reyes, who somehow interpreted Giovanni’s top-of-the-class position as unlimited free tutoring.

Gio, number seven.

No.

Number eight?

No.

Please let me know if my answer to nine is correct.

You haven’t answered nine.

Exactly. Help.

Giovanni actually laughed.

Then his thumb stopped.

Dominic Sebastian.

Even in the photograph, Dominic looked competitive.

Straight posture.

Perfect uniform.

The expression of someone who regarded second place as a clerical error.

If Giovanni scored ninety-seven, Dominic wanted ninety-eight.

If Alexander won something, Dominic wanted the next one.

Back then, Giovanni had thought it was ambition.

Perhaps some of it had been.

He turned the page.

And found Alexander.

Giovanni stopped.

The photograph was painfully young.

Neatly combed hair. Serious expression. School tie sitting exactly where it should.

His best friend.

The boy who’d carved him an awkward wooden sculpture for his birthday because he’d had no idea what else to give him.

The boy he’d left without properly saying goodbye.

Giovanni touched the edge of the photograph.

Then quietly closed the book.

Across the city, Alexander was doing almost the same thing.

His yearbook hadn’t been hidden particularly well.

It had simply disappeared behind several older books on a shelf.

Patrick came first.

Alexander laughed.

Unlike Giovanni, he’d known exactly why Patrick always had extra food.

Do you have anything else?

I gave my other sandwich to Gio.

I didn’t ask for a sandwich.

Then what are you asking for?

Chips.

Patrick had stared at him.

Do I look like a convenience store?

Elena was next.

Alexander remembered her primarily because she borrowed everything and returned almost nothing.

Two pens.

One ruler.

Several notebooks.

And, if memory served, one umbrella.

He wondered whether he could still collect.

Samuel had been no better.

Alex, study group tonight?

We studied yesterday.

Exactly. It’s working.

Then Dominic.

Alexander lingered on that photograph.

There had been good years.

That was perhaps the strangest thing about betrayal.

It didn’t travel backward through time and erase every decent memory that came before it.

Dominic had once been his friend.

Later, something more.

And eventually someone Alexander no longer trusted.

He turned the page.

Giovanni.

His expression softened before he could stop it.

A moment later, he reached for his phone.

Found my yearbook.

The response came surprisingly fast.

So did I.

Alexander typed:

We looked ridiculous.

Three dots appeared.

You looked ridiculous. I was valedictorian.

Alex snorted.

Your haircut had ambitions of its own.

A pause.

You gave me that haircut.

Alexander stared.

Then remembered.

He started laughing.

I trimmed one side.

You ruined one side.

You moved.

You had scissors near my ear. Of course I moved.

Alexander settled farther into the sofa.

Patrick?

Two sandwiches.

Elena?

Books.

Samuel?

Academic parasite.

Alexander laughed again.

Then:

Dominic?

The reply took longer.

Competitive.

Alex looked at the old photograph.

That was diplomatic.

And me?

This time, Giovanni’s answer didn’t take long.

Best friend.

Alexander stared at those two words.

Then typed:

Same.

Neither man mentioned that they’d both saved the other for last.